West Coast Shell Fish Bowl

Nothing taste better than a bowl of fresh caught BC shellfish. Simply clean the shrimp and scrub the shells and set in bowl with some ice. Fine chop a few garlic cloves, rib of celery, small cooking onion, white end of a leek, Dice 4 strips of bacon, one potato, one carrot. In a solid bottom pot add 2 tbs of olive oil and sauté the veg and bacon. Add a few pinches of thyme, oregano, tarragon and  bay leaf. Sea salt and fresh ground pepper. About 10 minutes. Add the shell fish and sauté coating by lightly mixing from the bottom with a wooden spoon. Add one tbs of butter...

Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler

        My aunt Marie was quite a baker and she would tell me that her style of baking was mostly the old fashioned no recipe scratch method. As I grew older watching my aunts bake I would make rehearse making some of their baked goods from some of these handed down recipes. They were always well received by friends and this fresh fruit cobbler was my favourite. I still make this simple dessert and find it hands on friendly to prepare. This cobbler recipe is particularly good with strawberries and rhubarb, but you can use any fruit combinations....

Bread and Butter Pickles

        Bread and Butter Pickles   Back when I was a young lad I had a paper route and lots of chores to tend too for making some pocket money. One laborious task was helping weed and water my mom’s extensive garden. The water nourishment for sustaining this garden was collected from rain and the winters melting snows which filled a small in ground pond. Before my mom would utilize that source she would haul pails of water from a stream that ran through our back yard property. This was a daily chore I hated the most. To make this task a little...

Toby Creek

                    I was now involved in the Panorama Resort project working for the past two years plus with just a few weekends off and doing the required resort duty manager day and fire duty was fiisicaly draining me down. The third summer was upon us and the mighty Toby Creek was flowing from its glacier tributary to Lake Windermere like raging bull rapids in some sections and a strong current snaking along a flat stretch in another spot. This creek had a world-wide reputation as a first class river too rough water...

Panorama Resort

Panorama Resort Lots of things were happening for me as I became more adapted to my profession. I was offered the job of as the executive chef to a soon to be resort owned by Calgary entrepreneur Allan Graham and The Cascade Group. This was a very rewarding position and I had lots of interviews and did several food presentation trials before being accepted. The resort operations manager was Robert Rutter hired especially for his expertise on this project from Spinney’s Support Services in Abu Dhabi. The resort manager was Rodney Darwin from The Gloucestershire House in...